Wong welcomes India’s participation in broader region
India has increased and intensified cooperation across multiple fronts with regional countries since it announced its “Look East” policy in the early 1990s, noted Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.
The Look East policy is an effort to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi renamed the policy to “Act East” in 2014 to further boost the ties with neighbouring countries East of India.
“There is broad recognition in India that a significant part of India’s interest lies to the east of India,” said Wong who was on five-day (17-21 Sept) visit to New Delhi. This was his first official visit as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore.
“So, we welcome India’s participation in the broader region. We see India playing a larger role in this evolving regional architecture for Asian cooperation,” Channel News Asia quoted Wong as saying.
A growing economic weight, which some reports have estimated for India to become the world’s third-largest economy after the US and China by 2030, could also see India taking on a larger role in regional and international affairs, Wong told journalists on 20 Sept 2022 in New Delhi.
Wong believes India, on assuming the presidency role for the Group of 20 meetings next year, will play a bigger leadership role in tackling global issues, be it climate change or pandemic response.
“On Singapore’s part, we have always believed in India as a strategically important partner and that’s why we’ve had close ties all these many decades, and it’s a relationship built on deep reservoirs of mutual trust,” he said.
“As country coordinator for ASEAN-India relations (from 2021 to 2024), we hope to see India be engaged in ASEAN in a more constructive and systematic manner and we … look forward to India becoming an important player in this evolving regional architecture.” fiinews.com
